In a few days, Ancient Rites will embark on the Independence of the Seas to perform at the original 70000 Tons of metal!

6 September 2015

We had a blast in Bretagne @ Motocultor Festival! Merçi Beaucoup!

29 July 2015

Back in the 80's, when the band was founded and no soul on this planet cared for our work, we would
never have believed that one day we would be asked to perform on an exotic Cruise from the USA to the Carribean. That seemed rather Alien to us. All we knew
were dark cellars. Miracles do happen and it seems we'll be on board of 70000 Tons of Metal, the biggest Metal Cruise
ever! Hope we can play in the shadow, that the pirates entering the ship will share their rhum and that the sharks won't bite too hard as we sink

Best Regards on behalf of Ancient Rites,
Gunther

14 July 2015

The merchandise section has been updated! A new T-shirt design "Soul Invictus" and the comic
"Van Roy en Sid - Devil's Charm *The Ancient Curse* created by Gunther are added to our Merchandise

1 July 2015

Breaking news! Ancient Rites will perform at the 70000 Tons of Metal Cruise!

31 March 2015

Today, March 31st, our album "Laguz" is officially released in the USA/Canada and easier available to the Hordes across the Atlantic.

Ancient Hordes/Leg. I - XVIII, exactly a month from now our new album "Laguz" will be released. Prepare to
enter the portals to long forgotten worlds, obscure histories, philosophies and the darker side. The countdown begins. The universe of Ancient Rites awaits.

3 December 2014

26 October 2014

The new A.R. album has been recorded. Midst the production now. Those who appreciate the style will relate.

3 August 2014

Ancient Rites has been working hard on the pre-production of a brand new album.
The band will enter the German SPACELAB studios in October which is their steady haven since the "Fatherland" album.
One can expect a combination of fierce Metal combined with filmic orchestration and a lyrical journey into long forgotten worlds true to Ancient Rites style. Limits will be pushed.
A new Chapter is being written. An Ancient Journey continued.

Unfortunately, we have to mention that our gig at the Hell Indoor Fest in Hellendoorn
which was supposed to take place at the 25th of May has been cancelled (again). It's needless to say that we are disappointed, and we know that
AR troopers were also looking forward to see us again.

Finally after some hiatus, we will hit the stage again, on May the 12th at De Stadsfeestzaal in Aarschot. Since it's quite some time ago that we played live, we'd like to do something special for you.
E-mail your 10 favourite Ancient Rites songs to favourites@ancientrites.be and we will select the most popular songs to feature in our setlist for the upcoming show.

12 March 2008Another gig in Belgium is confirmed. Ancient Rites will play at A.V.V.-Fest, Diksmuide on
Saturday the 27th of September. Some of the other bands are Lion's Pride, Klauwaert, Zwartketterij etc.

21 March 2008Another gig in The Netherlands is confirmed. Ancient Rites will play at Elsrock
Festival, Rijssen on Saturday the 30th of August.

25 February 2008

We are proud to announce that we are going to do a gig in Lithuania.
Ancient Rites will pe playing at Kilkim Zaibu festival at the 7th of June.

Another gig in The Netherlands is confirmed. Ancient Rites will play in Dynamo, Eindhoven
again on Friday the 18th of April.

14 November 2007Unfortunately, we have to announce that the dates in Bulgaria are cancelled. Hopefully, we
can return to Bulgaria another time.
However, another gig has been confirmed! ANCIENT RITES will perform at LAGOA BURNING LIVE 2008 in Portugal on the 25th of July

Expect more "ancient" photos from our archives to be put on-line during the next few months.
So keep an eye on the live section. Some of you might already have noticed that the order of the photos in the
Live section have been altered.
And as mentioned before, more Trooper and Live photos are always welcomed, so feel free to send your photos to
Gunther and he'll make sure
that they are forwarded to the relevant webmaster(s).

20 May 2007Another gig in Belgium is confirmed. Ancient Rites will be headlining
the outdoor stage of Nevelfest 2007!

08 March 2007Two gigs in Germany are confirmed. You can find information about those gigs in the section above.
For additional information about the Darkness Ablaze Release Party in Bietigheim, you can click on the following link (Link to Map)

14 February 2007The collaboration with guitarist Raf came to an end as it was for the best for all
parties involved. Rafs' guitar duties are taken over by Domingo who now plays his third instrument within the band.

02 February 2007LIVE UPDATE : Another gig in The Netherlands has been confirmed.
Ancient Rites will be playing at Gigant in Apeldoorn. This gig will take place on April 27th!
Check the upcoming gigs on a regular basis in the section above.

In the
Troopersection you'll find 2 new photos.
In the
Signedsection you'll find a photo of Ancient
Rites early line up, taken somewhere in England from the early 90's.
In the
Related photos you'll find 3 new photos.

To view any of the above,
go to the Visual section and then click
the appropriate section or follow the links above to take you there
directly:

7 October 2006

WEBSITE
UPDATE : New Live photos have been added to the
Visual
section. See Live photos and click
the appropriate section or follow the links below to take you there
directly:

WEBSITE
UPDATE : New Rubicon buttons are now available. See
Merchandise for more info.

18
September 2006

WEBSITE
UPDATE : Live photos from the Ancient Rites gig at the Staddijk in
Nijmegen, Netherlands from Saturday, September 16 are now online in the
Live Section. To go directly to those photos, click
here.

16
September 2006

WEBSITE
UPDATE : New photos have been added to the
Troopers,
Related and
Live sections. More Trooper
and Live photos are always welcomed, so feel free to send your photos to
Gunther and he'll see to it
that they are forwarded to the relevant webmaster/s.

3
September 2006

WEBSITE
UPDATE : New Live photos have been added to the
Visual
section.

For
those who are interested in Gunther's lyrics, you can find them all in
the Textual section as well as the
Discography. The liner notes in the Rubicon cd were trimmed down due to
limited space, but here and only here on the AR website, you can find the extended version
of Gunther's liner notes and lyrics, straight from Gunther's pc to you!

1 September 2006

WEBSITE
UPDATE : The
Rubicon CD as well as new Rubicon t-shirts/girlies are now available
through the Ancient Rites website. See
Merchandise for more info. Also, stop by the
Visual section, where you'll see
that all of the photo links have also been updated.

21 August 2006LIVE UPDATE : After a
long silence, there's another big live update : Ancient Rites will be
playing at the Biebob in Vosselaar, effectively returning to the venue
where the Live DVD was recorded. Mark your calendars for October 21st!

19 May 2006LIVE UPDATE : This is
a big one! The organisers of the Graspop Metal Meeting contacted the
band just a few hours ago to tell them Ancient Rites will NOT play on
Friday the 23rd of June on the Metaldome stage.
Instead, Ancient Rites will now take the slot alotted to U.S. death
metallers Deicide at Marquee 1 on Saturday the 24th! As you might
know, Deicide canceled their european tour and this included a gig at
GMM. According to the GMM organisation, Ancient Rites is the perfect
subtitute to fill this slot. While the band will not headline, they
all feel it's worthwile to make the exchange. So, update your calendars
so the Hordes will stand as one on the 24th of June!

15 May 2006LIVE UPDATE : It has been
whispered about, suggested, dreamed of, and flat out demanded by many,
but we can now say the rumour is true : ANCIENT RITES WILL BE PLAYING
AT THE GRASPOP METAL MEETING! The band will headline at the Metal Dome
on Friday June 23rd, starting from 9pm.
This will actually be the very first gig in home soil in support of
the new album 'Rvbicon', which officially hits the music shops as of
today! So get out here and buy it, start memorizing those songs and
prepare yourselves for the 23rd!

4 May 2006LIVE UPDATE : Ancient
Rites will be playing at the Extreme
Aggression Festival in Leeuwarden, Holland on June 10th. It will
mark the first gig in support of Rvbicon. Meanwhile, the band debuted
four songs of the album at their London gig last weekend. All four -
Templar, Mithras, Rubicon and Invictus - were greeted with much enthusiasm
by the English audience. Pictures of the gig will be added soon. Meanwhile,
the guys are gearing up for the
Ultima Ratio Festival in Krefeld, Germany this weekend. More live
dates all over Europe are in the works and will be added soon.

29 March 2006RVBICON UPDATE : Season
Of Mist has recently uploaded an mp3 of one of the Rvbicon songs for
you to download. Go here
to get a first sneak peek of the song 'Templar' and enjoy!

20 February 2006RVBICON UPDATE : This
is the one we've all been waiting for! Ancient Rites' record company,
Season Of Mist, has set a release date for 'Rvbicon'. We're pleased
to announce that May 15th will be The Day
To Cross The River. Shortly thereafter, Ancient Rites plans to play
a record release gig. The date and venue will be confirmed soon!

14 February 2006RVBICON UPDATE : Last
weekend, a listening party was held for the members of the press.The
overall reactions to hearing 'Rvbicon' for the first time were unanimously
positive. Meanwhile, the band have decided to release Rvbicon's track
list, which you can find here.

13 February 2006

Live gig news! The venue
for the Infernal Damnation Fest has been changed to the Purple Turtle
Club, also in Camden, London. You can take a look at the flyer here.

8 January 2006

BIG UPDATE! The recording
process for the new album is now finished and the band has named the
album : from now on, prepare to cross the
RUBICON soon!Yes, 'Rubicon' will be the upcoming
album's name. As far as song titles are concerned, these will be revealed
after the album's final mix, which is not that far off anymore. From
there to Rubicon's release will still take some time, but nevertheless
the countdown can begin! In the mean time, AR will prepare for the new
live assault this upcoming Spring.

Some site news : because
of several cases of abuse for purposes which have nothing to do with
the band as well as the recent spamming wave, the band has unanimously
decided to terminate the band forum. While they regret having to act
this way, they feel it's for the best interest of everyone. And they
are not intent on leaving you, the Troopers, out in the cold. From now
on, there will be a page, entirely dedicated to comments and emails
you send in about Ancient Rites. So send your comments and questions
to troopermail@ancientrites.be.
The mails will of course be monitored for offensive content before being
published. Other site news is that the Visual page will soon be updated
with several previously unseen pictures. Think Dynamo, Graspop and the
Autumn '96 tour as well as the gigs done in 2005.

That's it for this round
of news, but we'll soon return with more updates about Rubicon!

1 January 2006

A very dark and metal-
packed new year to all you loyal troopers! It's shaping up to be a good
year for the AR guys, what with the new album nearing completion and
the live gigs that will inevitably follow its release. Davy has just
left Spacelab after a two week stint there, which leaves Gunther to
put in the final effort before mixing the album. We were treated to
a little sneak peek of the instrumental versions of a couple of songs
and without revealing too much, we can say the new album will be another
step up! Gunther has come up with another batch of great lyrics, so
it's safe to say no one will be disappointed when listening to this
album. We can't reveal anything just yet, but it won't be long now before
everything about the new album will be made public. Keep your eyes peeled
on these pages in the upcoming weeks!

19 December 2005

By popular demand : another
recording update. Bart, Erik and Raf have finished recording the guitar
tracks and the new album is now starting to take shape. Davy is up next,
laying down the keyboard tracks and other assorted orchestrations.

3 December 2005

A quick update on the
recording process : everything is going well. So far, all drum and bass
parts have been recorded. Guitars are up next. Also, a second live date
has been confirmed : AR will be playing at the Underworld in Camden,
London at the Infernal Damnation Fest on April 29th.

21 November 2005

The first firm concert
date for 2006 has been confirmed : Ancient Rites will be headlining
at the Ultima Ratio 2 Festival in Krefeld, Germany on May 6th. More
dates will be confirmed in the next few weeks/months. Just check the
Upcomig Gigs space above this section regularly.

Yesterday marked the
last day of preproduction for the band, who are in full recording mode
as of today. We checked the band out during last rehearsal. The mood
was excellent and spirits are high. Rest assured they'll put in their
best effort in the studio!

17 November 2005

The long wait is finally
over : Ancient Rites are heading back to the studio to record the long
awaited follow- up to 2001's Dim Carcosa! Not only that, they are pleased
to announce that they have found a new record label in
Season of Mist, also the home of bands like the legendary Mayhem,
Rotting Christ and Arcturus. Needless to say the band is really happy
with both the new label as well as the fact they'll be heading back
to the Spacelab Studios come November 21st to record the new album under
the guidance and supervision of veteran AR producers Oliver Phillips
and Christian Moos.

The album will probably
be released some time in the first quarter of 2006, after which AR will
once again play live in support of the new album. Concerts all over
Europe and the U.K. are being negotiated and arranged as we speak, so
expect the band to be out there in full blast next year!

12 October 2005

The new Ancient Rites
Homepage is online. The Graphix part is finished. Still a lot of updating
in progress. Awaiting Gunther's approval.